Articles on The science of music

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This Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in the US. But what was it about? Was it the moptop haircuts, Cuban heels, and “yeah yeah…

Music psychologist and jazz pianist David Hargreaves of Roehampton University is probably the only professor to have opened the bill for Chuck Berry. But last week he beat even that. At a time when the…

If the new Marilyn Manson video showed a young woman disembowelling herself with a large sword because she had lost her lover it would be banned instantly. But this same scene is tolerated nightly in opera house performances of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.
EPA/TOR ERIK SCHRODERApril 6, 2013

As Jane Austen probably wanted to say, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good Black Sabbath CD must be in want of a shotgun. We are so encultured to believe that…

Ronan the sea lion was able to keep a musical beat, even when hearing a song for the first time.
American Psychological AssociationApril 2, 2013

What transforms noise from album filler to dancefloor killer? Why do some tracks turn us on while others make us tune out? DarwinTunes, a computer program that employs the principles of natural selection…